…even in texass.

srsly?

was my last entry really posted on january 30? i’m not sure how so much time has passed since then, but here we are.

full disclosure: my post on john o’donohue truly opened the floodgates of vulnerability within myself, and it almost felt like too much, too soon. a few days later, i had a rare friday off from work. i was going to spend the whole day by myself: no agenda, no meetings, no kids, nada.

i set my intentions on delving deeper into the meditation i’d begun the week before. but. when the day began, and i sat down in front of myself, i panicked. while i used to be pretty masterful in long hours of reflection (i pretty much spent the first half of my twenties doing that all the damn time), my current life is lived in half hour increments. a whole, unstructured day was a tidal wave. it knocked me over.

after twenty minutes at the coffee shop where i’d planned to live for the day, i packed up and drove over to the Y, just in time for jude’s creative dance class. and after that, i spent the whole day with my family, hanging out with the wonderful rancho chico crew, licking my existential wounds a bit, but mostly enjoying a whole lot of kids running around me. and (incidentally?), it was during this time that my son finally decided he no longer hated me, and he snuggled into me for many minutes.

on january 30, i said i “am at the place of resetting and gingerly putting a bit of weight on this leg of mine”, and then immediately tried to take a stroll as though the injury never happened. lesson learned.

as a girl who grew up believing that healing is an instant, dramatic “rise up from your mat and WALK!” kind of thing, i’m having to constantly remind myself of its slowness, its incremental-ness. healing is slow, and full of small revelations. patience and self-kindness are key.

as always, there are more stories to tell. stories of thinking about those “seven thoughts” while traveling back to my hometown, for a solo visit with my mother. i may have broken my lenten moratorium on alkyhol, but we sure had some wonderful conversations as we shared a bottle of wine. the kinds of conversations we’ve never had before. for the first time in my life, i understand her–and therefore myself–a tiny bit more. what an unexpected gift.

so. that is where i am on this humid friday morning, sitting at the coffee shop.